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Ownership language informs ownership psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2023

David Kemmerer Open the ORCID record for David Kemmerer [Opens in a new window]
David Kemmerer*
Affiliation:
Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA kemmerer@purdue.edu; https://hhs.purdue.edu/directory/david-kemmerer/
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Abstract

Many languages grammatically distinguish between alienable and inalienable possessions. The latter are sometimes restricted to body parts, but they often include other kinds of personally significant entities too. These cross-linguistic patterns suggest that one's most precious owned objects tend to fall within a complex self system that includes not only the core (corporeal) self, but also the extended (noncorporeal) self.

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Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 46 , 2023 , e340
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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